Reflection on A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

            This is a reflection about a fraction of  the book A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid . She is originally from Antigua, but now live in the United States. She shares with us about her experience in her early days in Antigua, and how it defined her. The book also presents the authors perspective on her island and the tourist who visit it and her feeling towards her land before and after it was occupied by England. Even though the text is not physically divided, the themes are presented in the order i mentioned them previously.

            Initially Kincaid starts by giving us a descriptive tour of Antigua as she thinks it looks through the eyes of a tourist. She then starts pointing out the things that as a tourist you would notice and those that stand ignored, all this in a deeply judgmental tone. She does not sympathize a lot with tourist and makes it clear by calling them "ugly human beings". She uses this term throughout her book  to refer to the egocentrically, selfish, ignorant, and all around negative perspective of tourists. The reason why they are ugly according to the author is because when visiting a place they are there with pleasure as first priority, hence ignoring all the problems worth noticing around them. She criticizes how tourists would walk by destroyed buildings that have been destroyed by a earthquake years ago and get to the hotel and just be enjoying themselves after witnessing so much need and suffering. 

                         

      She also explains that when a tourist travels he is searching to escape the banality of his everyday life, so he travels to a poorer place with poor conditions, away from the people they love and the ones that love them, all to be frowned upon by locals. The feeling of wanting to escape from your life exists in everyone, but not everyone can satisfy it. This is why natives look at tourists with dislike and envy, because they are enjoying themselves carelessly for once like the natives wished they could.

"'Oh, what a marvelous change these bad roads are from the splendid highways I am used to in North America.'” _{(referring sarcastically to tourists)}

            In the second part of the book the author shares with us about how England colonizing the island changed Antigua and her feelings towards it. She says that after the colonization Antigua was stripped of their culture and heritage and was given a new one. England did so well on spreading and imposing their culture that the Antigua that once existed was no more. Also the English people living in the island where arrogant and racist, but the natives didn't seem to notice much. The doctors also had a similar attitude, the treatment their patients received was very impersonal, and where treated with disgust as if their presence was unhealthy.

            Because of this she feels as if she has no real identity because the one her country have does not really belong to them. She wanders if she is more related to either country but seems confused and uncertain, as she said "... no motherland, no fatherland, no gods.".

            I found very interesting the psychoanalysis she makes about the motives of tourist for traveling and find that it happens to be very true in most cases. I am not convinced that her perception on tourists is fair to the tourists, even though this may be the case of some, many tourists will take into perspective everything around them without ignoring the unattractive things happening but will still hold distance and respect when it comes to laying their hands on others business.  I believe that her perspective is so negative because she has been through a tough times as an Antiguan and she resents what the English, whom are outsiders like tourists, robbing her of her culture.