In Jamaica Kincaid’s essay “On Seeing England for the First Time”, she describes her viewpoint on England based on her childhood in the Caribbean island of Antigua and gives insight into the true nature of England from the perspective of an individual living in one of its colonies.
Kincaid’s home of Antigua had been a British colony from the early 17th century until the end of the 20th century, and she grew up with a glorified, enthralling vision of England, placed upon her by the people of her island. Kincaid uses formal diction, as well as connotations, to display what lead her to feel the way that she does about the British Commonwealth over four thousand miles from her tiny plantation island. Kincaid uses invective language to allow the reader to see her anger towards the treatment of the colonies by their British luminaries with the idea that ‘the people who got to wear England were English people’. She uses terms such as, “England is like a jail sentence”, “prejudice” and “not-favorable” to help in the development of her knowledge that the colonies did not receive the same treatment that the Commonwealth did, though they did a great deal for England’s economy with their numerous sugar plantations.
Living in a colony, Kincaid was taught to perceive England in a glorified way, as if it were ‘a very special jewel’, making it the center of their world. The author examines these ideas by using parallelism and more formal diction to explain to the reader what England inculcated into the colonies. An example of the parallelism Kincaid uses would be when she describes the products used in the colonies were all made in england, and how it left the looming awareness that everything that surrounded them was made in England, even down to the ideals instilled within their lives; all except the sea, the sky, and the air that they breathed. This gives the readers a sense of what lead Kincaid to hold such resentments and hatred for Britain once she came to understand it’s true nature.
Not until she was an adult did Kincaid visit England for the first time, armed with a lifetime of resentment and hatred, she ‘could only indulge in not-favorable opinions’.Kincaid describes the reality of England based on her own experience there by using personal anecdotes to her time spent there. She describes the people as being so pale that it ‘made them look so fragile, so weak, so ugly’, and her desire to be able to banish them from their own land and place them in the position of her people and the people of other colonies. Kincaid also describes the people of Britain as rude, with their only real common ground being their dislike of people like her; giving the audience a sense of prejudice towards Kincaid because of where she comes from and her home’s relation to England. This allows the reader to see how the glamorized, embellished version of Britain compares to the reality of it, according to Kincaid herself.
Kincaid writes in a formal and angst-ridden tone for an audience of people who are unknowing to what effects that the grandeur of other nations or the significance of imperialism can bring upon a nation as well as an individual. Her purpose in writing this essay is to give a first hand look into the treatment English colonies received and to show her readers the sheer importance of understanding and perceiving things as they truly are compared to your vision of it. In the words of Kincaid herself, “The space between the idea of something and its reality is always wide and deep and dark.”
Asad Karamally says
As always when analyzing rhetoric, one of the most important things to keep in mind is perspective. Perspective is something that is formed by a multitude of factors and therefore we must be very careful when basing our ideas on other people’s work.
Ahmad Aufa Bin Sharip says
a good draft!