Kincaid

Kincaid writes from the voice of an Antiguan, her voice stern and powerful. Her critical outlook on the people that visit her country, she scorns and critiques throughout her work. Through her lens of loathing of all things tourist and at times comical outlook on the state of her country, puts into perspective the displacement and corruption white people can do.

I say white people in a broad sense because that is how Kincaid address the people who have come to ruin her country. She blatantly blames the people of North America and Europe, which she really despises, and in a way, wants whites as a whole to answer for what they have done. She writes of the dependency that is now supporting her country through the tourism that keeps the poor inline and the rich in power.

One of the main issues that Kincaid voices is the Library. The library is in ruins and they have no means to fix and repair the once great place. The only means that they could possibly have is through a rich white woman and even then everything that needs to be done to the library will be on her terms and not in favor of the Antiguan's. The rich white people have made the people of the country dependent on their resources. Those holiday homes and hotels would not be able to survive without the work of the people who are actually from the country. It is a place of corruption and disparity.

After going to Cuba this summer it makes me sick to think that I was apart of that tourist culture, I contributed to the whole system. I understand that people need to get away but the people who have access to get away are privilege, just as Kincaid says at the end of her book, "were a prison, and as if everything and everybody inside it were locked in and everything and everybody that is not inside it were locked out" (79).  This just speaks to the whole system of what she describes. That they will always be stuck because there is nothing there to help them succeed. Everything will stay the same and it will not differ. Kincaid also spoke to the people of Antiguan not being able to realize their suppression and not realizing they are living in a moment that the could change if they came together. They do not realize their past or know of other histories of things like changing governmental bodies can happen. Their knowledge of their own bodies of power is limited and hindering their ability to move forward from this place that Kincaid describes.