Summary Of Jamaica Kincaid's 'On Seeing England For The First Time'

Reactionary Politics What is it like to live under the hegemony of a foreign nation? In “On Seeing England for the First Time”, Jamaica Kincaid describes her youth in Antigua, and the feeling of the “iron vise” of England “forcing [her] head to stay in place” (423). England’s colonization of Antigua is all-encompassing; at school, she is taught the history of the country. Its culture is forced onto the island, despite the fact it does not necessarily fit the environment. Even the most menial slices of life are given a new script, from breakfast to getting punished by your parents. Kincaid sees what is going on when she notices inconsistencies: phrases such as “when morning touch the sky” lose all meaning to a girl who lives in a place where

Kincaid’s father does this when he wears his “felt hat” that is made from material unfit for Antigua’s weather (422). When you are faced with an unmatchable power, sometimes the only answer may to surrender. Kincaid, of course, reacted differently. She decided to write about it. Kincaid’s choice to narrate her experience as a child and subsequent dealings with England is a way to inform the general population of the way that colonization affected her personally. She does it carefully, making the reader aware of she too may be “full of prejudice” (427). She admits to her flaws as a person while at the same time explaining how her lack of power separates her flaws from that of her oppressors. This response puts the horrors of colonization in the past; Kincaid may still have feelings on the matter but she and Antigua are no longer forced under an English reeducation. This puts distance between the events of her childhood and the reader. It allows for them to empathize and recognize wrongdoing on part of the English, but it does little to show them how hegemony is perpetuated and what they can do to stop it. Binyavanga Wainaina, on the other hand, takes a more biting

The authors he writes about are not ignorant people; they have taken it upon themselves to document a piece of humanity. Wainaina makes the point for authors to emphasize their “love” of Africa, and that the continent would be “doomed” without their book (544). The people writing about Africa are not perpetuating a false narrative out of malice, but rather because they do not know better. Their entire lives have been spent inside Western culture, images of foreign nations already imprinted in their brain. Kincaid touches on the same unawareness when she writes that it was “people who look like her” that taught the English people the “unpleasantness” of prejudice (427). People are taught how prejudice is evil by learning the ways in which it is used to oppress minorities. It is not until the regular person is educated about the wrongdoings they unknowingly commit that they can be made aware of the world around them, and this is exactly Wainaina’s response. “How to Write about Africa” exposes the reader to a broader view of hegemony and teaches them how they may be perpetuating hegemony without knowing it. Hegemony is not simply some country holding power over another. Hegemony is a cultural institution, that feeds a false narrative to both the victims and the regular person who lives with this