Anger in a small place: Jamaica Kincaid's cultural critique of Antigua.

Anger in a small place: Jamaica Kincaid's cultural critique of Antigua. Jamaica Kincaid's first three works - At the Bottom of the River(1983), Annie John Annie John, a novel written by Jamaica Kincaid in 1985, details the growth of a girl in Antigua, an island in the Caribbean. It covers issues as diverse as mother-daughter relationships, lesbianism, racism, clinical depression, education, and the struggle between medicine (1985), and A Small Place (1988) - which are focusedon life on Antigua, Kincaid's native island, reflect a deephostility toward that world. Though the books employ differingdiscourses - fiction and polemic - and focus on varying aspects of lifethere, they share an anger about that island that the author makeslittle effort to conceal. That anger is about colonialism and itseffects, especially in A Small Place. But more fundamentally, theseworks challenge the assumptions of Antiguan culture itself. A SmallPlace examines the public realm, and Annie John the more personal one offamily and friends, while At the Bottom of the River focuses on theprivate world of the psyche and dreams.Another way to express the differences in the representations ofAntiguan society is to figure them in gendered terms. A Small Placeattacks what is for the island the male world of politics, business, andpublic life. At the Bottom of the River and Annie John use the motherand other women as symbols of culture that the protagonist must escapein order to grow up. Kincaid represents in the two works of fiction theproblematic role of the mother in shaping the daughter's place inthe culture and society. As Ann Morris and Margaret Dunn have noted,"For the Caribbean woman, the notion of a motherland is especiallycomplex, encompassing in its connotations her island home and its uniqueculture as well as the body of tropes, talismans, and female bondingthat is a woman's heritage through her own and other mothers. Theland and one's mother, then, are co-joined" (219). The motherprepares the daughter to live in a male-centered world, which in thiscase is also racially conditioned by a history of colonialism The historical phenomenon of colonisation is one that stretches around the globe and across time, including such disparate peoples as the Hittites, the Incas and the British, although the term colonialism . InKincaid's writing, a key question is how to think of the motherwhen traditional socialization socialization/so��cial��iza��tion/ (so?shal-i-za��shun) the process by which society integrates the individual and the individual learns to behave in socially acceptable ways. so��cial��i��za��tionn. is hateful to the daughter. All threeworks, directly or indirectly, examine the female voice as a means topersonal, cultural, and social power in a colonial and postcolonialcontext. They express a view that the Caribbean woman, when she offers acritique, must do so from within the cultural assumptions and languageof the colonizers, filtered through the mother. Thus, the aesthetics ofanger takes shape as a dialectic of cultural affirmation and denial:Kincaid attacks society and the culture while acknowledging the power ofthe mother(land) over her novelistic nov��el��is��tic?adj.Of, relating to, or characteristic of novels.novel��is voice.This latter point is not readily apparent in A Small Place. Theextended attack on colonialism, corruption, and tourism as a kind ofneocolonialism is straightforward in its polemics. From the beginning,Kincaid establishes her authority by speaking in the second person tothe "tourist," which allows 'her to characterize theaudience and its voice in the text. She can offend without challenge:An ugly thing, that is what you axe when you become a tourist, anugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here andthere to gaze at this and taste that, and it will never occur to youthat the people who inhabit the place in which you have just pausedcannot stand you, that behind their dosed doors they laugh at yourstrangeness (you do not look the way they look); the physical sight ofyou does not please them; you have bad manners (it is their custom toeat with their hands; you trying to eat their way, you look silly; youtry eating the way you always eat, you look silly); they do not like theway you speak (you have an accent); they collapse helpless fromlaughter, mimicking the way they imagine you must look as you carry outsome everyday bodily function Noun 1. bodily function - an organic process that takes place in the body; "respiratory activity"bodily process, body process, activitycontrol - (physiology) regulation or maintenance of a function or action or reflex etc; "the timing and control of his . (17)Such a characterization not only calls into question the self-imageof the tourist, but also "signifies" on the language used bycolonizers and others of the First World in defining the colonized.Here, Kincaid is engaged in what Ashcroft, Grifriths, and Tiffin Tiffin,city (1990 pop. 18,604), seat of Seneca co., N central Ohio, on the scenic Sandusky River in a farm area; inc. 1835. China, glassware, machinery, wire and cable, and electrical equipment are made in the city. Heidelberg College and Tiffin Univ. are there. call"post-colonial abrogation The destruction or annulling of a former law by an act of the legislative power, by constitutional authority, or by usage. It stands opposed to rogation; and is distinguished from derogation, which implies the taking away of only some part of a law; from Subrogation, " of the language of the colonizer:"Abrogation is a refusal of the categories of the imperial culture,its aesthetic, its illusory standard of normative or 'correct'usage, and its assumption of a traditional and fixed meaning'inscribed' in the words" (38). Just as the Eurocentricperspective reduces the colonized to objects of ridicule and abuse, sohere the visitor from that outside world is made the object of derisionby the natives. At the same time, such mocking has to be masked("behind their closed doors"), unlike the insults of theEuropeans and Americans, which are limited only by the socialpreferences of the individual. Antiguans must appear deferential deferential/def��er��en��tial/ (-en��shal) pertaining to the ductus deferens. def��er��en��tialadj.Of or relating to the vas deferens.deferentialpertaining to the ductus deferens. , evenif they are in reality filled with anger. Kincaid inverts the power ofnaming inherent in colonial discourse by saying in public what otherAntiguans can say only in private. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , she violates thefemale role of passivity and voicelessness inscribed in the culture.Kincaid pushes signifying to its logical end in her representation ofthe British who came to the island as officials of colonial power:We thought these people were so ill-mannered and we were so surprisedby this, for they were far away from their home, and we believed thatthe farther away you were from your home the better you should behave.(This is because if your bad behavior gets you in trouble you have yourfamily not too far off to help defend you.) We thought that they wereun-Christian-like; we thought they were small-minded; we thought theywere like animals, a bit below human standards as we understood thosestandards to be. We felt superior to all these people . . . (29)In an ironic inversion, it is the islanders, even during the colonialperiod Colonial Period may generally refer to any period in a country's history when it was subject to administration by a colonial power. Korea under Japanese rule Colonial America See alsoColonialism , who are truly English, the civilized ones qualified to defineothers as less than human.The larger irony is in Kincaid's language. In order toarticulate her hostility to colonialism, she must revert to theobjectifying language of the English masters. She must linguistically doto them what they have done to the Antiguans. She speaks in A SmallPlace of the difficulty of using English:For isn't it odd that the only language I have in which to speakof this crime [colonialism] is the language of the criminal whocommitted the crime? And what can that really mean? For the language ofthe criminal can contain only the goodness of the criminal's deed.The language of the criminal can explain and express the deed only fromthe criminal's point of view. It cannot explain the horror of thedeed, the injustice of the deed, the agony, the humiliation inflicted onme. (31-32)If the language of the master is so limited, then the oppressed musteither choose silence (there is no Antiguan language) or the language ofcriminality. Kincaid chooses the latter by adopting a discourse ofsuperiority and objectification. She merely reverses the direction ofdiscursive power. Thus, she concedes herself caught in the prisonhouseof the colonizer's language.Independence produced no real changes in the dominant order. Thesilencing of the people has continued, even though the leaders are nowfrom among them. Wealth and power are in the hands of a very few, all ofwhom, in Kincaid's view, are corrupt and indifferent to the welfareof the people. The people's resignation of voice is evidenced bythe fact that the very politicians who keep the people poor in order tomake themselves and their friends rich are regularly reelected tooffice. Kincaid explains this passivity in terms of the cultural masternarrative:Antigua is a small place, a small island. It is nine miles Nine Miles is a reggae "band" started by Yoshiaki Manabe (真鍋吉明) of The Pillows. The name Nine Miles comes from the name of the town in which Bob Marley grew up in Jamaica. Yoshiaki Manabe is the only member of the "band. wide bytwelve miles long. It was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493.Not too long after, it was set-tied by human rubbish from Europe, whoused enslaved but noble and exalted human beings from Africa (allmasters of every stripe are rubbish, and all slaves of every stripe arenoble and exalted; there can be no question about this) to satisfy theirdesire for wealth and power, to feel better about their own miserableexistence, so that they could be less lonely and empty - a Europeandisease. Eventually, the masters left, in a kind of way; eventually, theslaves were freed, in a kind of way. The people in Antigua now, thepeople who really think of themselves as Antiguans . . . are thedescendants of those noble and exalted people, the slaves. (80-81)This narrative allows them to escape responsibility for themselves,their society, and their culture. All that is wrong is the product ofcolonialism: government corruption is a natural product of Britishdomination. Neither the ministers of state who practice corruption northe people who elect them can be held responsible. Thus, Kincaid'scritique leads her to the heart of the culture itself. It isfundamentally dialectical in that it requires for its own validation thevery colonialism that it despises. Without it, there is the painfulreality of human freedom and responsibility:Of course, the whole thing is, once you cease to be a master, onceyou throw off your master's yoke, you are no longer human No Longer Human (人間失格,Ningen Shikkaku rubbish,you are just a human being, and all the things that adds up to. So, too,with the slaves. Once they are no longer slaves, once they are free,they are no longer noble and exalted; they are just human beings. (81)Antiguans, then, maintain a myth of their own noble enslavement en��slave?tr.v. en��slaved, en��slav��ing, en��slavesTo make into or as if into a slave.en��slavement n. inorder to escape their entry into a common humanity. They have in thissense used what power they have to construct themselves as powerless andthus have evaded their true lack of eloquence and power.For Kincaid, the chief image of decline and corruption is the islandlibrary. It is also a way into the deep ambiguity of her attitude towardthe culture. She recalls the library from her own childhood as a sacredspace sacred space,n space—tangible or otherwise—that enables those who acknowledge and accept it to feel reverence and connection with the spiritual. , a cool retreat from the colonized world and an opening to thegreater world away from the island:But if you saw the old library, situated as it was, in a big, oldwooden building painted a shade of yellow that is beautiful to peoplelike me, with its wide veranda, its big, always open windows, its rowsand rows of shelves filled with books, its beautiful wooden tables andchairs for sitting and reading, if you could hear the sound of itsquietness (for the quiet in this library was a sound in itself), thesmell of the sea (which was a stone's throw away), the heat of thesun (no building could protect us from that), the beauty of us sittingthere like communicants at an altar, taking in, again and again, thefairy tale fairy taleSimple narrative typically of folk origin dealing with supernatural beings. Fairy tales may be written or told for the amusement of children or may have a more sophisticated narrative containing supernatural or obviously improbable events, scenes, and personages of how we met you, your right to do the things you did, howbeautiful you were, are, and always will be; if you could see all ofthat in just one glimpse, you would see why my heart would break at thedung heap that now passes for a library in Antigua. (42-43)What has happened to the library is, in her view, a major crime. Whenthe building was damaged by an earthquake, the books were moved to adusty loft, and a sign posted that "Repairs are Pending."Fifteen years later, that sign remains and the building is still notusable.Part of the difficulty for Kincaid is the inability to identify atrue motherland, an Antiguan culture that is separable sep��a��ra��ble?adj.Possible to separate: separable sheets of paper.sep from that of thecolonizers and the "tourists." Slavery and colonialism did notdisplace or suppress an indigenous society; they created Antigua. Theauthor also does not suggest that the blacks of the island generated anew culture that could be the basis for rejuvenation RejuvenationAesonin extreme old age, restored to youth by Medea. [Rom. Myth.: LLEI, I: 322]apples of perpetual youthby tasting the golden apples kept by Idhunn, the gods preserved their youth. [Scand. Myth. or an authenticAntiguan society. With this absence at the heart of her polemic, she, ineffect, must replicate the position of the colonizers: the islandershave no civilization except a second-hand one. The corruption of thegovernment robs the people of the good things of the white world, theEnglish language English language,member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. and the canonized texts of that culture, along with thepower associated with those things. The labeling of cultural hegemony Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. It means that a diverse culture can be ruled or dominated by one group or class, that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation for complex systems of domination. asa "fairy tale" in the passage cited above does not change thereality of Antigua as an essentially Western culture. The libraryprovides the language and the texts by which Kincaid can learn how toattack the white world. In a different context, Josaphat Kubayanda hasdescribed this as the "deterritorializing" of metropolitandiscourse: "Its function is clearly one of reversal at the level ofspeech; however, it also raises and nurtures a combative consciousnessthrough linguistic subversiveness" (119). In her effort tocastigate cas��ti��gate?tr.v. cas��ti��gat��ed, cas��ti��gat��ing, cas��ti��gates1. To inflict severe punishment on. See Synonyms at punish.2. To criticize severely. the colonizers and their black successors, Kincaid has laidclaim to guardianship of the library, the sacred space of metropolitanculture.The library also plays a symbolically significant role in Annie John.The title character loves the library and the books it contains. Sheloves it so much that she steals the books that she reads. She justifiesthis by arguing that "after reading a book, whether I liked it ornot, I couldn't bear to part with it" (55). This desire toliterally possess the Word reflects Annie John's complexrelationship to her society. She seeks knowledge of the larger world andacts according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. its precepts. Thus, she is the smartest student inschool and, as much as possible, identifies with her mother'sdesire to make her a good Antiguan woman. At the same time, she is anoutlaw, often taking pride in her thefts and other crimes. But thesecrimes, as shall be seen, are themselves negations of the gender rulesof her culture and so link her in a profound way to that culture. Inthis sense, the stealing of library books represents both herquestioning and affirmation of the British culture contained withinthem.Similarly, the central episode in the chapter entitled "Columbusin Chains" has Annie John defacing a picture of ChristopherColumbus in her textbook. The particular phrase she uses - "TheGreat Man Can No Longer Just Get Up and Go" - is one that she heardher mother use derisively de��ri��sive?adj.Mocking; jeering.de��risive��ly adv.de��ri against her own father. Thus, AnnieJohn's words challenge the Eurocentric perspective insisted upon bythe school system by reinscribing it as caricature. Importantly,however, she does so by using not her own words, but those of hermother, the person most concerned with the success of thedaughter's education. She turns a personal assertion of self into apolitical gesture that is simultaneously a childish prank. Sheimplicates the mother in a way that the mother must repudiate TO REPUDIATE. To repudiate a right is to express in a sufficient manner, a determination not to accept it, when it is offered. 2. He who repudiates a right cannot by that act transfer it to another. . At thesame time, Annie John writes the words in Old English Old English:see type; English language; Anglo-Saxon literature. Old Englishor Anglo-SaxonLanguage spoken and written in England before AD 1100. It belongs to the Anglo-Frisian group of Germanic languages. lettering, "ascript I had recently mastered" (78). The act of subversion, then,is caught in complex ways in the net of domination. Just as in A SmallPlace, the expression of resistance comes only through"mastery" of the language of others.The mother is the crucial figure in this daughter's story ofcoming of age. She represents the culture in the sense that she seeks toinculcate in��cul��cate?tr.v. in��cul��cat��ed, in��cul��cat��ing, in��cul��cates1. To impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill: inculcating sound principles. its values and practices in Annie John.(1) She alsounconditionally accepts those things she passes on. She does not, forexample, question the liaisons that her husband has had with otherwomen. She only seeks the help of obeah practitioners in protectingherself and her daughter from the curses and spells that might be castby these women. With little difficulty, she accommodates to the dualityof Antiguan culture. When Annie John becomes very ill, the motherconsults both an obeah woman and the British-trained doctor, and givesthe girl the medicines prescribed by both. Being within the culturemeans precisely refusing to see any conflict in these two perspectives.At the level of female identity, Laura Niesen de Abruna has pointedout the significance of colonialism in Kincaid's fiction:The same system of British education that erased and colonisedindigenous history also attempted to erase female sexuality and tocontrol the female body. Attempted colonisation of the female body isone of the points of contention between Annie and her mother becauseAnnie constantly rebels against those aspects of her society that havebeen imposed by the British. Some of these norms have been absorbed byAnnie's neighbours, her school and, especially and unfortunately,by her beautiful, loving, and well-intentioned mother. (279)This point is made most explicit in "Girl," the first piecein At tbe Bottom of the River, with variations played in Annie John.Spoken almost entirely by the mother, with only occasionalinterjections by the daughter, "Girl" offers a catalogue ofinstructions for becoming the good Antiguan woman. Much of it is devotedto practical matters, such as how to select and prepare certain foods,how to choose fabrics for clothes, how to perform various domesticchores, and how to behave in public. The rhythm of repetition in theinstructions has the quality of a litany:[T]his is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a wholehouse; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someoneyou don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone youdon't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you likecompletely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set atable for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with animportant guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how youset a table for breakfast. . . . (4)The ritualization Ritualization is a behavior that occurs typically in the member of a given species in a highly stereotyped fashion and independent of any direct physiological significance.Ritualization is also associated with the work of the religious studies scholar Catherine Bell. of speech suggests a conscious initiation into theexpected behaviors of a woman in this culture. It also indicates thenature of the culture. It is a society in which public forms are veryimportant and in which subtle differences among those forms are alsosignificant. Moreover, these are lessons largely in Western behaviorsrather than those of a traditional culture. To be a good Antiguan womanmeans then to know how to maneuver appropriately within a Eurocentricculture.Accompanying these instructions, however, are others. One set of themhas much to do with Afro-Antiguan culture:[D]on't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be ablackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding Bread pudding is a dessert popular in British cuisine and that of the Southern U.S., as well as Belgian and French cuisine. The French refer to it by the English name "pudding" without the word "bread" and the Belgians call it Bodding. ; this is how tomake doukona; this is how to make a pepper pot; this is how to make goodmedicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away achild before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; thisis how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way somethingbad won't fall on you. (5)Accompanying training in preparing local food is training in folkbeliefs. The reference to these suggest their mundane quality: the powerof nature to do harm is taken for granted Adj. 1. taken for granted - evident without proof or argument; "an axiomatic truth"; "we hold these truths to be self-evident"axiomatic, self-evidentobvious - easily perceived by the senses or grasped by the mind; "obvious errors" . The blackbird might be ajablesse, a shape-changing female spirit whom one does not want tooffend. The fish can invoke a curse. Thus, there is a world behind theworld of public appearance and performance, one which has its ownauthority and its own rituals.The reference to ridding oneself of an unwanted unborn child leadsinto the third and most problematic area of instruction: the repeatednaming of the daughter as a potential "slut." The warnings andthe assumptions behind them indicate the importance of the suppressionof female sexuality, at least in any form not authorized by the society.The mother asserts the view that the daughter is determined to becomepromiscuous. In fact, she seems to believe that the daughter isintrinsically such a person: "this is how to hem a dress when yousee the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like theslut I know you are bent on Adj. 1. bent on - fixed in your purpose; "bent on going to the theater"; "dead set against intervening"; "out to win every event"bent, dead set, out to becoming . . . this is how to behave in thepresence of men who don't know you very well, and this way theywon't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you againstbecoming" (4). The daughter's sluttishness slut?n.1. a. A woman considered sexually promiscuous.b. A woman prostitute.2. A slovenly woman; a slattern.[Middle English slutte. is taken forgranted; the advice is aimed at preventing others from realizing it. Themother's function, then, in part is to condition a new generationof young women to experience themselves as guilty because of theirgender and not because of any particular actions they do or do not take.The authoritarian nature of this lesson is emphasized by theineffectiveness of the daughter's resistance to her mother'saccusations. Thus, the daughter's education is in subservience tothe culture's negative definition of womanhood. Her only powercomes in manipulation of appearances and in avoiding evil forces. Shecannot be self-defining or assertive. Her only approved acts ofresistance have been against her own sensual nature.In Annie John, the mother-daughter relationship is initially seen aspositive, though clearly a socializing one. Annie and her mother goeverywhere together, they wear identical clothes, and the daughter knowsher own life through the arti-facts of infancy the mother has preservedand the stories she tells. The mother, in effect, prepares the daughterto function within the society by being a version of herself. Suchbehavior is not narcissistic nar��cis��sism? also nar��cismn.1. Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See Synonyms at conceit.2. A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in : Annie John points out that she and all ofher friends instinctively act as their mothers do. What the mother doesthen is not personal but deeply cultural. The training of the daughterin true Antiguan womanhood carries on the established pattern.More importantly for the central conflict of the text, it is themother who generates the process of individuation individuationDetermination that an individual identified in one way is numerically identical with or distinct from an individual identified in another way (e.g., Venus, known as “the morning star” in the morning and “the evening star” in the for the daughter (cf.Murdoch and Timothy). The mother suddenly (from the daughter'spoint of view) insists that they not wear clothes made from the samematerial and that Annie John may well want to perform certain domestictasks in her own way. While the mother in fact encourages individualityonly within cultural norms (it is accepted that Annie John would performdomestic tasks, for example), the daughter responds by seeing her motheras Other, as erstwhile friend who somehow has betrayed her. The violenceof her feeling, including the desire to see her mother dead, reflectsthe depth of the relationship. "But I couldn't wish my motherdead. If my mother died, what would become of me? I couldn'timagine my life without her. Worse than that, if my mother died, I wouldhave to die too . . ." (88). Female identity within Antiguanculture can only be defined in terms of the mother, and, since themother passes down the culture, she is the source of national identityas well.Annie John's anger at the mother's treachery leads her toconstruct an identity in terms that are outlawed by the culture and themother. She gives up her friendship with Gwen, a girl who represents allthat is acceptable to the society, to pursue a relationship with the RedGirl, who is dirty, ragged, uneducated, and tomboyish. She does this inpart because she finds such difference from her own life fascinating.She is intrigued by the smell and feel and behavior of such a rebelliouschild. But she does not desire to become the Red Girl. Her interest isstimulated largely by the lies she must generate to deceive her mother.The Red Girl, in other words, exists for Annie John in negation of themother and not as an alternative identity. This context is evident whenthe girl (to whom Annie John never gives a name) moves away and is nevermentioned again.Two crucial moments define the mother's importance in shapingfemale identity, the role of culture in that identity, and thelimitations of resistance and independence. In the first of these, AnnieJohn brings home marbles she has won at school. Since playing marbles isa forbidden "male" activity, the mother's suspicionsabout it are simultaneously personal and cultural. Both mother anddaughter see this as a crucial site of conflict over Annie John'sidentity. Annie John flagrantly lies about both possessing marbles andplaying a "boy's" game. The climax of this test of willscomes when the mother, after days of futile searching for thecontraband, resorts to sentimental narrative. She tells a story ofherself as a child helping her father as a dutiful du��ti��ful?adj.1. Careful to fulfill obligations.2. Expressing or filled with a sense of obligation.du daughter should. Shecarries home on her head a load of figs too heavy for her small body,but she never complains and manages to get the burden home. As she setsdown the bundle, a large black snake black snake,name for several snakes, not all closely related, that are black in color. In the United States the name is applied chiefly to the black racer and to the black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta), both partly arboreal in their habits. crawls out of the figs and into theforest. The story has its intended effect:When my mother came to the end of this story, I thought my heartwould break. Here was my mother, a girl then, certainly no older than I,traveling up that road from the ground to her house with a snake on herhead. I had seen pictures of her at that age. What a beautiful gift shewas! So tall and thin. . . . She was so shy that she never smiled enoughfor you to see her teeth, and if she ever burst out laughing she wouldinstantly cover her mouth with her hands. She always obeyed her mother,and her sister worshipped her. She, in turn, worshipped her brotherJohn. . . . Oh, to think of a dangerous, horrible black snake on top ofthat beautiful head; to think of those beautifully arched, pink-soledfeet (the feet of which mine were an exact replica, as hers were anexact replica of her mother's) stumbling on the stony, uneven road,the weight of snake and green figs too much for that small back. (69-70)This is the model of the true Antiguan girl: obedient, self-effacing,hard-working, and loyal - the very opposite of Annie John, themarble-playing liar. By joining cultural image and narrativemanipulation, the mother hopes to regain her authority: "The words'The marbles are in the comer over there' were on the very tipof my tongue, when I heard my mother, her voice warm and soft andtreacherous, say to me, "Well, Little Miss, where are yourmarbles?" Summoning my own warm, soft, and newly acquiredtreacherous voice, I said, "I don't have any marbles. I havenever played marbles, you know" (70). The daughter is nearlyseduced, but the mother, too confident of her power, overplays her hand.Annie John thereby learns a different lesson from the one intended. Sheuses the voice of the good Antiguan girl, "soft and warm," todeceive, just as her mother has. The narrative of innocence subvertsitself and exposes the underlying cultural treachery. But that realityis necessarily exposed in the language of that culture. Annie John canonly resist by replicating the voice of her mother.The second episode exposes the sexual tension inherent in themother-daughter relationship. Annie John one day meets on the street aboy with whom she had been close friends when they were small children.Again, there is a moving story contrasted with a different reality. Sheremembers the time she and Mineu had created their own version of alocal scandal. They would act out the trial and then Mineu would pretendto hang himself. The last time they did this, there was an accident andhe nearly died. Annie John remembers her own inability to do anything tosave him. When they meet in the present, he is with his male friends,and his behavior toward her is "cruel." His maleness, asdetermined by his group, requires that he not take her or anyrelationship that they have had seriously. She leaves feeling that sheis being mocked.Her mother offers another reading of the scene, which she hasobserved from nearby. She accuses Annie John of making a"spectacle" of herself with the boys:She went on to say that, after all the years she had spent drumminginto me the proper way to conduct myself when speaking to young men, ithad pained her to see me behave in the manner of a slut (only she usedthe French-patois word for it) in the street and that just to see me hadcaused her to feel shame. The word "slut" (in patois pat��ois?n. pl. pat��ois1. A regional dialect, especially one without a literary tradition.2. a. A creole.b. Nonstandard speech.3. The special jargon of a group; cant. ) wasrepeated over and over, until I suddenly felt as if I were drowning in awell but instead of the well being filled with water it was filled withthe word "slut," and it was pouring in through my eyes, myears, my nostrils, my mouth. (102)The powerlessness Annie John experienced at the time of Mineu'saccident is repeated in her new encounter with him. Significantly, inthat first incident, everyone, including her mother, feels somewhatashamed at her inability to speak or act. This time, their male powerand scorn for her young womanhood also reduces her to silence. On thisoccasion, however, the mother's shame associated with it resultsfrom perceived womanly wom��an��ly?adj. wom��an��li��er, wom��an��li��est1. Having qualities generally attributed to a woman.2. Belonging to or representative of a woman; feminine: womanly attire. self-assertion. The mother and the boys, ineffect, conspire con��spire?v. con��spired, con��spir��ing, con��spiresv.intr.1. To plan together secretly to commit an illegal or wrongful act or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.2. to deny any form of female self-expression not withinculturally-determined boundaries. The violence of the mother'sverbal attack suggests the importance of understanding those limits foran acceptable woman within the society.The three encounters - Mineu's hanging, the meeting with theboys, and the confrontation with the mother - show the permissible rangeof female voice and action in a male-dominated society. One should takeinitiative only to protect and care for men, not to establish personalrelationships with them. To do the latter leads to either derision oraccusations of promiscuity PromiscuitySee also Profligacy.Anatolconstantly flits from one girl to another. [Aust. Drama: Schnitzler Anatol in Benét, 33]Aphroditepromiscuous goddess of sensual love. [Gk. Myth. . It is a fundamental violation of culturalnorms for women to presume to exercise power or voice. This point isreinforced when Annie John responds to "drowning" in"slut" by reversing the insult through negative identity:"'Well, like father like son, like mother likedaughter'" (102). Again, the daughter can only resist herobjectification by joining herself to the mother. The mother repudiatesthe accusation by repudiating the relationship: "'Until thismoment, in my whole life I knew without a doubt that, without anyexception, I loved you best,' and then she turned her back andstarted again to prepare the green figs for cooking" (103). The"green figs" bring the text back to the image of the mother asthe dutiful daughter, self-denying, virtuous, and voiceless. A daughterwho refuses to silently fit that model cannot be loved because shecannot be a true daughter.Finally, when Annie John reaches the age of seventeen, she decides toleave Antigua altogether in order to have her own life. A visit to Gwensymbolizes the reasons. Gwen has become the successfully integratedAntiguan woman, but for her former friend this is not a virtue:"She had now degenerated into complete silliness, hardly able tocomplete a sentence without putting in a few giggles. Along with thegiggles, she had developed some other schoolgirl traits that she did nothave when she was actually a schoolgirl . . ." (137). Similarly,Annie John is now much taller than either of her parents, suggestingthat she is now the adult and they the children. Antigua, in otherwords, disables maturity and authentic identity and must be escaped forthose processes to successfully occur.But again the text is rife with ambiguity. Escape is not original.The mother herself left her home on Dominica when she could no longertolerate life with her own father. Her voyage, in the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?"midmost of ahurricane, is one of the heroic narratives of the family. AnnieJohn's departure, by comparison, is routine, and furthermore, isencouraged by the mother as a way of seeing the larger world and gainingmore education. What is clear from this repetition is that escape doesnot free one from cultural imperatives; in fact it makes it possible tomore deeply implicate im��pli��cate?tr.v. im��pli��cat��ed, im��pli��cat��ing, im��pli��cates1. To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly: evidence that implicates others in the plot.2. the self in culture. Moreover, the destination,nursing school in England, is itself a validation of the Eurocentricvalues she claims to reject. There is, in other words, no escape fromthe prisonhouse of culture.The narratives in At the Bottom of the River offer surreal responsesfrom the daughter to the power and authority of the mother and theessentially patriarchal culture she supports. It can be argued thatthese stories must take place in the realm of dreams and visionsprecisely because there is no place for them in society. The cultureeffectively silences the daughter's voice and so she must speak ina dream language. Consistently, the narratives do precisely this. Theyinvolve shape-shifting, radical changes in time and space, and drasticmovements in emotion, especially from love to hate. The mother is boththe source of nurture and strength and the principal threat to thedaughter's very being. Repeatedly, the daughter fully identifieswith the mother but then experiences profound alienation. A kind ofideal state is presented in "In the Night" as the marriage ofmother and daughter and the creation of a permanent state of childhood:Every day this red-skin woman and I will eat bread and milk forbreakfast, hide in bushes and throw hardened cow dung Noun 1. cow dung - a piece of dried bovine dungbuffalo chip, cow chip, chipdroppings, dung, muck - fecal matter of animals at people wedon't like, climb coconut trees, pick coconuts, eat and drink thefood and water from the coconuts we have picked, throw stones in thesea, put on John Bull masks and frighten defenseless little children ontheir way home from school, go fishing and catch only our favoritefishes to roast and have for dinner, steal green figs to eat for dinnerwith the roast fish. Every day we would do this. (12)Life is not the careful social performance required in"Girl"; instead, it is an endless pattern of consumption andcruelty freed from all responsibility. The mother in this visionvalidates childhood rather than leads one out of it. Furthermore, themarriage to the mother eliminates any form of masculine authority.In contrast to such a paradise is the suspicion inherent in realrelationships:Immediately on wishing my mother dead and seeing the pain it causedher, I was sorry and cried so many tears that all the earth around mewas drenched. Standing before my mother, I begged her forgiveness, and Ibegged so earnestly that she took pity on me, kissing my face andplacing my head on her bosom to rest. Placing her arms around me, shedrew my head closer and closer to her bosom, until finally I suffocated.. . . Between my mother and me now were the tears I had cried, and Igathered up some stones and banked them in so that they formed a smallpond. The water in the pond was thico and black and poisonous so thatonly unnamable invertebrates could live in it. My mother and I nowwatched each other carefully, always making sure to shower the otherwith words and deeds Words and Deeds is the eleventh episode of the third season of House and the fifty-seventh episode overall. This episode concludes the Michael Tritter story arc that began in the episode Fools for Love. of love and affection. ("My Mother"53-54.)Affection and forgiveness are associated with death, and love is ameans of suppressing hostility. The power of the mother threatens thechild, but it is also inescapable. The result is constant irresolvable ir��re��solv��a��ble?adj.1. Irresoluble.2. Impossible to separate into component parts; irreducible. tension and distortion. The mother, in the same story, changes herselfand her daughter into lizards, but no matter what size they grow to, themother is always larger. Thus, the daughter must take her identity fromthe one who gave her birth, but she will always remain inferior. Thisarouses resentment, always ineffectual: contentment only comes fromsubmission of the daughter. At the end of "My Mother," thenarrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. , who is an adult herself now, says that she is seated in hermother's "enormous" lap, and that "it is in this waymy mother and I have lived for a long time now" (61).If the mother metonymically me��ton��y��my?n. pl. me��ton��y��miesA figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of is the culture, then the story suggeststhat there is no place outside of it and no identity other than thatgranted by it. Resentment and resistance do not grant one independentstatus; they can only be articulated in terms of cultural norms. One canbe against the mother or enclosed within her; one cannot be beyond her.This is true even though her embrace is "suffocating" and lovefor her is only watchfulness. In fact, it can be argued that the angergrows out of awareness of the totalizing nature of culture.The resolution of the situation is offered in the title story of thecollection. The narrative begins in much the same way as others: thereis love and beauty, but they are always tempered by pain and death. Infact, a long middle section is a meditation on death, in whicheverything that lives is seen as creating an illusion of permanence. Thenarrator portrays herself as desiring a belief in eternal truth andbeauty, but "I now know regret" (70).What she does is to Visualize a world "at the bottom of theriver" where there is no change or death. It is a world of essencesin which nature and its colors and forms are perfect, in which thepeople live unchanging lives of contentment. She seeks to enter thisworld, but in doing so loses her identity: "I had no name for thething I had become, so new it was to me, except that I did not exist inpain or pleasure, east or west or north or south, or up or down, or pastor present or future, or real or not real" (80). The world oftranscendence is beautiful, but it is also not a human or natural world.It is, in that sense, its own kind of death.So the narrator chooses to enter humanity, even if its life is onlytemporary:In the light of the lamp, I see some books, I see a chair, I see atable, I see a pen; I see a bowl of ripe fruit, a bottle of milk, aflute made of wood, the clothes that I will wear. And as I see thesethings in the light of the lamp, all perishable and transient, how boundup I know I am to all that is human endeavor, to all that is past and toall that shall be, to all that shall be lost and leave no trace. I claimthese things then - mine - and now I feel myself grow solid andcomplete, my name filling up my mouth. (82)She finds herself in a space where natural things have been convertedto human purposes, purposes not only of physical nurture but also ofartistic expression. This becomes the creative rather than destructivereaction to totalizing culture. It is not through resistance to themother/culture, nor is it in generating some realm of perfection outsideof human reality in which one can dream revenge for the perceived wrongsdone to childhood desires or perhaps transcend time and desirealtogether. It is rather in recognition and appreciation of the temporalto the point of artistically recreating it. The artist discovers hertrue name and place in such creative encounters with the world. One ineffect creates culture in order to counter it.This last statement returns us to the necessity of the resistingvoice. The mother/culture must be challenged because it denies voice andtrue creativity. In the first book Kincaid sets out the need forresistance that she expresses in other ways in her later works, Both therealm of the social-political and that of the mother seek to turn eachperson into a version of the previous generation and thus to keepantigua outside of history and human responsibility. This means anendless replication of voicelessness and nonidentity. One cannot destroysuch effects, because there is no language outside the culture. Insteadone must speak the effects on the self and the society in its ownlanguage. But to do so, to speak the anger, as in A Small Place, AnnieJohn, and At the Bottom of the River, is to claim a human voice indefiance of the repressive forces of culture.NOTE1 On the role of the mother, cf. Perry, Natov, Murdoch, and Timothy.WORKS CITEDAshcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths Gareth John Griffiths (born 10 April 1970 in Winsford, England) is an English footballer, who last played for Northwich Victoria. External linksGareth Griffiths career stats at Soccerbase , and Helen Tiffin. The Empire WritesBack: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London:Routledge, 1989.de Abruna, Laura Neisen. "Family Connections: Mother and MotherCountry in the Fiction of Jean Rhys Jean Rhys (August 24, 1890 - May 14, 1979), originally Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, was a Caribbean novelist who wrote in the mid 20th century. Her first four novels were published during the 1920s and 1930s, but it was not until the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea and Jamaica Kincaid Jamaica Kincaid (b. Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson, 25 May 1949 in St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda) is an American novelist, gardener, and gardening writer. She lives with her family at North Bennington in the U.S. state of Vermont. ."Motherlands: Black Women's Writing from Africa, the Caribbean andSouth Asia This article is about the geopolitical region in Asia. For geophysical treatments, see Indian subcontinent. South Asia, also known as Southern Asia . Ed. Susheila Nasta. New Brunswick New Brunswick, province, CanadaNew Brunswick,province (2001 pop. 729,498), 28,345 sq mi (73,433 sq km), including 519 sq mi (1,345 sq km) of water surface, E Canada. : Rutgers UP, 1992.Kincaid, Jamaica Kincaid, Jamaica,1949–, West Indian–American writer, b. Antigua as Elaine Potter Richardson. She immigrated to the United States at 16 and later became a U.S. citizen. . Annie John. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1985.-----. At the Bottom of the River. 1983. New York: Penguin, 1992.-----. A Small Place. 1988. New York: Penguin, 1989.Kubayanda, Josaphat B. "Minority Discourse and the AfricanCollective: Some Examples from Latin American and CaribbeanLiterature Caribbean literature is the term generally accepted for the literature of the various territories of the Caribbean region. Literature in English specifically from the former British West Indies may be referred to as Anglo-Caribbean or, in historical contexts, ." Cultural Critique 6 (Spring 1987): 113-30.Morris, Ann R., and Margaret M. Dunn. "'The Bloodstream ofOur Inheritance': Female Identity and the CaribbeanMothers'-Land." Motherlands: Black Women's Writing fromAfrica, the Caribbean and South Asia. Ed. Susheila Nasta. New Brunswick:Rutgers UP, 1992. 219-37.Murdoch, H. Adlai. "Severing the (M)other Connection: TheRepresentation of Cultural Entity in Jamaica Kincaid's AnnieJohn." Callaloo cal��la��loo?n.1. The edible spinachlike leaves of the dasheen.2. A soup or stew made of these leaves or other greens, okra, crabmeat, and seasonings. 13 (1990): 325-40.Natov, Roni. "Mothers and Daughters: Jamaica Kincaid'sPre-Oedipal Narrative." Children's Literature children's literature,writing whose primary audience is children.See also children's book illustration. The Beginnings of Children's LiteratureThe earliest of what came to be regarded as children's literature was first meant for adults. 18 (1990): 1-16.Perry, Donna. "Initiation in Jamaica Kincaid's AnnieJohn." Caribbean Women Writers. Ed. Selwyn R. Cudjoe. Wellesley:Calaloux, 1990. 245-53.Timothy, Helen Pyne. "Adolescent Rebellion and Gender Relationsin At the Bottom of the River and Annie John." Caribbean WomenWriters. Ed. Selwyn R. Cudjoe. Wellesley: Calaloux, 1990. 233-44.Byerman, professor of English at Indiana State University Indiana State University,main campus at Terre Haute; coeducational; est. 1865 as a normal school, became Indiana State Teachers College in 1929, gained university status in 1965. There is also a campus at Evansville (opened 1965). in TerreHaute Terre Haute(tĕr`ə hōt, tĕr`ē hŭt), city (1990 pop. 51,483), seat of Vigo co., W Ind., on the Wabash River; inc. 1816. and managing editor of African American Review The African American Review is a quarterly journal and the official publication of the Division on Black American Literature and Culture of the Modern Language Association. , is the author ofSeizing the Word: History, Art, and Self in the Work of W. E. B. Du Bois(Georgia 1994), Alice Walker: An Annotated Bibliography (with ErmaBanks, Garland 1989), and Fingering the Jagged Grain: Tradition and Formin Recent Black Fiction (Georgia 1986). He is now working on a study ofhistory in contemporary African-American narrative and co-editing acollection of essays on "Slavery and Representation."