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Jamaica Kincaid's Reason For A Small Place

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Kincaid’s Reason for A Small Place Jamaica Kincaid writing style, in A Small Place, makes the reader feel attacked. Her word choices also make the reader think about themselves. British colonization and its effect is the root of Kincaid 's anger. By looking through the Post-colonial, Marxists, and New Criticism literary lenses it reveals her reason of writing and it shows deeper emotions and ideas. In A Small Place, the root of Kincaid’s anger is from British colonization in Antigua (her homeland) and the effect it had on the government and society. The postcolonial lens looks at the consequence that external forces have on native people and their land. She loathes the fact that the English used to rule Antigua. Since they destroyed Antiguan government and “left an impoverished society” (Metzger 1165). The government is so corrupt that it cannot care for the natives making them “too poor to live properly” (Kincaid 19). Antigua’s corrupt government is one reason that irritated Kincaid about colonization but another reason why is that it “created Antigua”. There were no indigenous people on Antigua when the British founded it. They brought slaves, onto the island, creating the Antiguans that populate the island today. This means everything on the island is to the British 's liking, an example is education. Kincaid stated that she learned British curriculum. Students “studied British history and culture, rather than the history and culture” of Antigua (Hirsch and , Schweitzer
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