Reaction on the First Two Chapters of A Small Place (Part I)

I ran into someone I admire and she had a little moment of sheer happiness when she saw me holding A Small Place I my hand. I had heard my professor talk about the book briefly and tell the class that it was a very enjoyable piece of literature, but it wasn’t until I witnessed that reaction that I was intrigued. I read the first two chapters of A Small Place and loved them I have a great love for authors who truly challenge you as a reader and Jamaica Kincaid is one other those authors.

She works with various aspects of Antigua and the issues that surrounded it during the time they were under the control of the English. On the other hand, she also works with those things that still haunt the people of Antigua. I was very happy to find such a similar outlook on being dominated by another country from someone who lived in an island not far from Puerto Rico. It is not the same to read these things out of a history book (that was controlled in terms of what you are being told history was like) than to read it as a personal story of someone who lived through it. We are constantly watched and being told what “the truth” about important past events. I know now a lot of things about my country that I did not learn out of a history book simply because specific people don’t want you to know what really happen. Many important figures in history are cut out of it and the books that depict it.

Jamaica Kincaid uses captures you from the very first sentence and makes you want to keep reading. You end up feeling the way she did and imagining yourself in her shoes. She makes the outsider either join her for what she stands for or feel guilty about things that probably, in a way aren’t related to them a lot. That is the power of a writer, to actually make you feel something and stir that up inside so that when you are finished you gain a new perspective and are not the same.

I stand by Jamaica Kincaid in her anger and frustration. I think she is right to feel the way she does. She had every reason to write A Small Place and for her voice to finally be heard. How are we supposed to understand history if we aren’t open to what those who lived through it have to say? I for one really loved how beautifully Jamaica Kincaid told her story.