Colonialism And Gender Relations In The Literature - Book Report/Review Example

Colonialism And Gender Relations In The Literature Summary “Annie John” by Jamaica Kincaid is the story about a young girl who goes through painful phases to grow into a woman. The narrator of the story is Annie Victoria John, who lives in Antigua with her mother and enjoys a delightful relationship with her in her childhood which converts into an aggressive emotional battle with her mother when she goes into her adolescence. When Annie was ten, she had no idea what it was like to be dead for a child her age. Once, she saw her parents preparing for a young girl’s funeral who had dies in Annie’s mother’s arms. This seems strange to her. She watches her parents preparing coffin and burying the dead girl which made her emotionally distant from her mother. She would not like to touch her mother’s hands after that experience. This incident was preceded by deaths of two of Annie’s acquaintances. This made Annie attend strangers’ funerals secretly without having her parents know. Once, she got caught by her mother when she forgot to pick up fish for dinner due to the reason that she had gone to a girl’s funeral after school time. She lied about the whole thing. This enraged her mother who punished her to have her dinner alone. The story’s initial pages tell us of Annie’s pleasant experiences with her mother. She tells how she would help her mother in daily chores. She describes how her mother would gossip with her, tell her stories, and show her possessions which she had been collecting since Annie’s birth. Then she goes into her adolescence and begins to turn away from her mother emotionally when she makes her change her dressing habits and learn piano which she fails. The incident when she catches her parents making love changes her mind from peace to conflict with her mother. She does not like being touched or kissed by her anymore. She tells of her first day at her new school where she had no friends. In an autobiographical essay, she writes about a day she had spent with her mother, bathing at sea. She lost sight of her mother and was afraid that she was not going to be able to find her but all at once, her mother appears and soothes her. She writes that she dreamt the same incident after some days but this time, her mother did not appear. She gave a false ending to the story by writing that she told her mother about the dream and she soothed her again. She becomes best friends with Gweneth Joseph at her school. Annie reaches her menstruation age and shows it to her friends to be comforted. Due to her severe conflicts with her mother, she decides to become friends with a red haired girl who played marbles which was a game her mother always warned her to play. Her mother becomes suspicious and asks her about this, but she lies until her mother tells her own story when she was young. Her hatred gets increased when she gets punished by her teacher who caught her writing her mother’s remark, which she had given about Annie’s sick grandfather, under the picture of chained Columbus. She gets annoyed when her mother gives her breadfruit disguised as rice. When she turns fifteen, she starts getting nightmares about her mother which haunted her even in daylight. She wants to be in Belgium living alone like Jane Eyre’s Charlotte Bronte. She hates her mother when she scolds her for talking to some boys one day. The she falls ill for three months and a half, the period accompanied by heavy rains. Her grandmother takes care of her. The rains stop and she becomes well, but with a severer rejection for the world. At seventeen, she leaves Antigua for England to study nursing. She bids farewell to Gwen and her parents, and sits in her cabin listening to the sound of the waves. Book Review “Annie John” is a narration of interrelationship of physical and psychological development of its main character. This novel is very rightly regarded as one of the Caribbean bildungsromansthat not only focus on the growth of the story’s main character but also contain the authors’ experiences paralleled with those of the West Indian societies where they reside. (Ferguson, 1994).To completely understand the novel, one must understand the culture and history of Antigua which Kincaid has combined with her own experiences into a novel. Like every bildungsroman author, she has paralleled the growth of the character into adulthood with her society’s growth from imperialism to independence. The rebellion of the character shown toward her mother symbolizes the revolt of the author toward the powerful ones of his society. The complicated feelings that nurture in the character’s heart for her mother correspond to the complicated relationship between Antigua and its British colonial social order. Although Antigua became self-governing in 1979, it was not accepted as an independent state until 1981. Kincaid felt a strong rebellion against the British educational and colonial system enforced upon Antiguans. According to her, it was heartbreaking to see how the colonists were trying to convert the culture of Antigua into the British culture. She expresses her detest for the colonialists and also for the Antiguans who were not being able to achieve independence. How Annie behaves with the Red Girl is a commentary on the British colonialism. Unlike Annie, the Red Girl does not follow the colonial structure, is against the British educational system, does not wear European clothes, keep wild hair and climbs trees. Being called by the name the Red Girl shows that she does not accept the British rule that imposes names and rules upon the residents. Annie’s wish to be like the Red Girl shows her desire to reject the British colonialism. In her novel, Kincaid has portrayed a Caribbean society which is dominated by its male members accepted as careless and carefree individuals of the society enjoying extramarital sexual relationships. The mother is regarded as a social institution. Kincaid has very successfully tried to bring to the table issues regarding race, ethnicity, class, gender and colonialism prevailing in her very culture (Bloom, 1998). References Bloom, H. (1998).Jamaica Kincaid: Modern Critical Views. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. Ferguson, M. (1994).Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to Jamaica Kincaid: Eastern Caribbean Connections. New York: Columbia University Press. Read More