Jamaica Kincaid Use Repetition In On Seeing England For The First Time

476 Words2 Pages

The passage “On Seeing England for the First Time” by Jamaica Kincaid uses repetition and figurative language to convey her resentment toward England. Jamaica Kincaid uses repetition in her passage to show how her attitudes toward England as it slowly erased the Antigua’s culture. Kincaid uses the words “Made in England” to express how the English had dominated their culture and their way of life; the Antigua people had been asphyxiated by the English and their culture so aggressively and for so long that they began feeling inferior for not being English which made them try even harder to strive and be just like them because they considered that their main goal, to be able to be part of the magnificence that was the english culture. She goes on to explain how she had to change personal aspects to be more acceptable by her society because if she …show more content…

She uses a jewel and a map as two contrasting symbols to show how the English view themselves vs. how the English really are. Kincaid says “England was a special jewel all right, and only special people could wear it” to express that although the English had colonized Antigua, they were not considered English, that the English were two opposites sides of a coin. To contrast this idea Kincaid uses the map and says “... in jungles, in deserts, on plains, on top of the highest mountains… in places where they were not welcomed, in places they should not have been” to show the harsh truth of the English colonies all over the world, to also express that the English took as much as they desired with no regards for everyone else, such as the original settlers of a territory. Jamaica Kincaid wants to cause the reader to picture a map and to understand that jungles, deserts, plains, mountains, etc. are not together naturally, they were forced to converge because of their common