Postcolonial Reading of Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy

Abstract:

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Jamaica Kincaid is one of the most important contemporary Antiguan- American novelists. In all of her works, Kincaid focuses greatly on the influence of the colonial project from which her nation suffered greatly in the past. This paper offers a postcolonial reading of the novel Lucy (1999).  The novel details the life of a girl who left her homeland, Antigua, and went to the United States to work as an au pair for a white family. The paper focuses on the author’s as well as the main character Lucy’s anger at everything that reminded them of the colonizers, their homeland and family. This anger is seen as a form of hate traced in Lucy’s reaction towards the educational system created by the colonizers, her homeland, and any authoritative figure. Lucy suggests that the educational system, which follows the British teachings, in Antigua asserts the domination of the colonizers and the humiliation of her nation. She hates her homeland because she considers it as a production made by the colonizers. Fleeing to the United States is a way to escape her past. Her hate of any kind of domination or control practiced on her is seen in her bad relationship with her mother and employer. Struggling to overcome her anger throughout the novel, Lucy discovers that the aftermaths of her nation colonial past formulates her present and points to her future.