A Small Place

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Kaufman, Will, and Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson. Britain And The Americas: Culture, Political, And History: A Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2005. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Four short autobiographical essays, anti-travel, Jamaica Kincaid at her most provocative. The first essay is quite brilliant, especially as it is written in the second person, you, you, you, thus deliberately embedded with an accusatory tone. Oblomov: Two seconds, Kev, I need to down this pint before I can stomach talking to you without hitting you with a chair. Kev: Ri-ght, so she's complaining about tourists, is she? Bet she'd whine even more if they didn't bring in the cash for some gift shop tat. Having earned her High School General Equivalency Degree during her time in New York City, Kincaid was awarded a full scholarship to the then recently opened and short-lived Franconia College in New Hampshire. She attended school there for about a year in the late 1960s and never earned a college degree. She later earned honorary degrees from numerous universities.

In her work, Jamaica Kincaid presents an anti-imperialist dialogue which is particularly critical of tourism and government corruption, both of which became prevalent after independence. She criticizes Antigua's dependence on tourism for its economy. Kincaid also mentions the damage caused by the 1974 earthquake, which destroyed many buildings. The author also explains how many people in office were charged with all forms of corruption. This social critique led to it being described as "an enraged essay about racism and corruption in Antigua" by one reviewer. [3] Major ideas [ edit ] Tourism as a neo-colonial structure [ edit ]i19329969 |b1030002690325 |dcmg |g- |m |h10 |x0 |t0 |i6 |j18 |k010630 |n08-15-2016 19:33 |o- |aPR9275 .A583 K5637 1988 Throughout the entire book, I could feel her anger. It pressed in upon me while I was reading, heavy on my chest. I think that the author’s rage is genuine, but after some reflection, I don’t like it as a literary device. Her anger and vitriol were very effective at pulling the reader in. However, it felt like listening to an angsty teenage rant. After a while, I felt as if she should calm down, apologize, and explain her point to me in a less childish way. Another example is when people are being driven in a taxi and discover the changes between there roads and cars they find it exciting since they are on their holiday when in reality travelers do not realize that Antiguans have to drive under dangerous conditions every day due to the bad roads and the cars that they drive filled gasoline. Kincaid says the tourists are oblivious to the conditions that Antiguans are under and stating that the cars “look brand- new, but they have an awful sound—its because they used leaded gasoline in these cars whose engines were built to use non-leaded gasoline.” (6) The brand new cars that the Antiguans are using were not built for the conditions that they are in.

A Small Place is an unusual novel in that it is written in the second-person perspective, placing the reader, "You", as a tourist who has arrived in Antigua, with Kincaid's voice, the narrator, speaking to you directly. The narrator is a unique force in the story: sometimes, Kincaid merely describes the scenery; sometimes, she provides her own outlook on it; but she also aggressively targets the reader, asking them critical, thought-provoking questions. For this reason, A Small Place is a book that does not merely seek to tell a story, but also fully and completely immerse the reader in the scenes of Antigua. Međutim, hronotop Antigve je samo jednim svojim delom palanački, ona je i utopija (ne-mesto) i distopija i heterotopija i svet-u-malom i mesto-van-sveta. Tačkica ispod mrvice kolača na karti sveta, raj i pakao. Jamaica Kincaid’s bio-rant is a catalogue of the residue of slavery in Antiqua - and in the Caribbean and the Americas more generally. What remains from the formal ownership of people by other people is a commercial dominance symbolised most forcefully by tourism. The tourist is the modern liberal, middle-class slave-owner. “A tourist is an ugly human being.” The tourist is hated by the people he exploits just as the slave-owner was hated by the same people. Find sources: "A Small Place"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( May 2012) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

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Oblomov: I never said I was. The book told me next to nothing about Barbuda and other islands that are Antigua's dependencies, and the only thing I know about contemporary Antigua now is the name of the PM and that they finally fixed that library. Hell, I couldn't even have pointed to Antigua on a map till a few days ago, and yet everyone in Antigua knows the country I'm from. Part 3 - Opens up with the statement that imprisoning, murder, tyranny and corruption are lessons learned from the colonialists. An interesting theory not borne out by human history anywhere in the world, as afar as I am aware. This hypocritical theme continues its whining diatribe decrying bureaucracy and capitalism but offers up no alternative; ironically called out from a person who thrives in the US privately-funded academic system, hardly a bastion of socialist freedom. Kev: Meh. Maybe? I don't know, it still sounds like you're reading it so you can think you're better than me. And the Antiguans sound like the real racists for not liking tourists. White men are the true oppressed group now, afterall-

Kev: Well go on then. Why would you want to read a book about bad stuff done by people we've never met, to people we've never met, and keep saying 'we' should feel guilty for it? Do you not... Are we not allowed to be proud of being British anymore, is that it? We can't change what happened now.

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Never in my life have I been so perturbed by something I read than by Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place. I love and hate this book at the same time. This is the kind of book that makes me uncomfortable with myself, and forces me to think about my world in a way that I don't like to admit. Maybe that’s why I lean more towards not liking this book. Maybe there is some uncomfortable deficiency within myself that she brings to the surface like an angry boil. But I don’t think that is wholly the reason. This book is beautiful, poetic, and deeply personal, but as an intellectual, I feel like it is also a work of flawed sensationalism.