ipl-logo

Corruption In A Small Place

1174 Words5 Pages

Furthermore, due largely to these lingering effects of the colonial era, one may argue that Kincaid speaks about native Antinguans as if they exist soley as a form of bare life. Bare life, a theory developed and discussed by renowned Italian philosopher Georgio Agamben, posits that the “sheer biological fact of life is given priority over the way a life is lived, by which Agamben means its possibilities and potentialities” (Oxford 2018). With this state of bare life, individuals become reduced to mere bodies. Expression, culture, and individually become essentially ignored or deemed unimportant.

To further highlight the impact colonialism has had upon the geography of Antigua, Kincaid continually addresses two key symbolic elements that …show more content…

In her eyes, corruption in Antigua is a learned behaviour, one Antiguans have adopted directly from the English following their departure (Kincaid 1988, 34). Consequently, A Small Place draws attention to the many forms of corruption rampant across the island, particularly within the beauracratic governing structures of the country. This is yet another way, via the theme(s) of colonialism and decolonialism, that Kincaid grounds her argument within geogrpahy, as corruption has no doubt influenced the overall sense of place across Antigua. Specific examples of corruption include the two main Japanese car dealer ships being owned by the government (9), the political and economic influence of “the Syrians” (11), the woman Evita having a say in cabinet meetings due to her relationship with a high government official (12), the disappearance of 11 million dollars given by the French for developmental aid (66), and the Prime Minister viewing the “the government of Antigua as his own business, with his two sons holding positions of influence directly under him …show more content…

I, in this essay, have merely scratched the surface. Kincaid, through a perspective grounded in a comprehensive critique of colonialism, provides us with a profoundly affective narrative - one that encompasses elements of place, identity, politics, and history. A Small Place presents readers with a quick and relatively easy read, at least at surface level. However, when one truly begins to unpack the book, taking the time to critically reflect upon its content matter, Kincaid 's delivery shines through, presenting a collection of ideas that are anything but straightforward. Imbued with a continuous degree of subtle intricacy, ASP packs a significant degree of substance into a deceivingly small package. Evidently, Kincaid 's approach relates heavily to the various geogrpahies of Antigua and thus, her arguments can not be removed from such a reality. Such

Show More
Related
1128 Words | 5 Pages

Professor Henry Gates visits the island divided in his very first episode of Black in Latin America. The island of Hispaniola hosts both the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic and have so for five centuries. The island was the first land in the Americas to import African slaves and from that point the two nations have shared the Massacre River, but nothing else. Haiti and Dominican Republic have two completely different cultural identities and this relates to the connections they have with their African ancestors. Professor Gates explores and compares both of these cultures and why they have so many differences, even though they are in very close proximity.

Read More
418 Words | 2 Pages

This specific book changed my outlook on my hometown. I thought I knew a lot, but in actuality I don’t. My hometown is relatively historic, and when I think about it, I think I need to know more about it. Before reading this I thought that everything, and every place was established by white people.

Read More
579 Words | 3 Pages

History is what we learn in school about the past, about people’s culture, their way of life, their beliefs, their fight and their dreams. However, history is not an absolute truth. In fact, every story has more than one version. The History of the native American in the United States still one of the most controversial subjects in history, not only because of all the ambiguity filled in the story, but also and more importantly because the it was written by only one side. Indeed, it was written by the winners, the invaders, and the dominants.

Read More
413 Words | 2 Pages

During the 1877 through 1920 the government's role wasn't really expanding, instead people were getting furious that the government weren't really doing anything to improve life so they started going on strikes, making unions, and bringing people of different cause together to try to force the government into being useful. However, this only led to political corruption, people saying they would do something to help the people and people would believe and put their trust into this "person" to only be blackmailed in the end. These "people" were called political bosses and they had their little organization or political machines and people would do them favors to gain jobs or etc. This growing "government" was a mixed bag for the American people,

Read More
1526 Words | 7 Pages

Michelle Cliff’s short story Down the Shore conspicuously deals with a particularly personal and specific, deeply psychological experience, in order to ultimately sub-textually create a metaphor regarding a wider issue of highly social nature. More specifically, the development of the inter-dependent themes of trauma, exploitation, as well as female vulnerability, which all in the case in question pertain to one single character, also latently extend over to the wider social issue of colonialism and its entailing negative repercussions, in this case as it applies to the Caribbean and the British Empire. The story’s explicit personal factor is developed through the literary techniques of repetition, symbolism, metaphor, as well as slightly warped albeit telling references to a distinct emotional state, while its implicit social factor is suggested via the techniques of allusion, so as to ultimately create a generally greater, undergirding metaphor.

Read More
756 Words | 4 Pages

After thinking, I realized that, along with Haiti, many other islands in the Caribbean had been or still were under colonization and being oppressed. The use of the word “island” here can be seen as a call to battle to all other islands in the Caribbean who are being oppressed by their colonizers. Although not immediately following the Haitian War of Independence, many of the fellow Countries that were being oppressed in the Caribbean slowly began to realize and fight for their independence. For this reason, I find the use of the word “island” in this quote very

Read More
1447 Words | 6 Pages

She achieves her aim in highlighting that the prohibitive laws which reduce people like her to mere sexual bodies is a psycho-social remnant of the colonial past. She addresses a number of audiences within the piece, including the human rights community, the governments of both her native Trinidad and Tobago and The Bahamas, and by extension all citizens of the Caribbean and wider world who have been disenfranchised by laws that diminish their humanity and highlight their perceived iniquity. The implication of her essay is clear: if not just any body can be a citizen, the democracy which we have set up is in need of some adjustment. It relates to us because it reminds us that for every time we deny any body rights, we have failed to live up to the principles on which are postcolonial societies are supposed to be

Read More
1160 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
1084 Words | 5 Pages

These memories, despite happening years ago, are still present in many lives, represented by Hortense’s claims that she remembers being inside her mother’s womb. Though European colonization happened long before Irie was born, she still lives within a community where the effects of colonialism can be seen. For example, when the headmaster of Irie’s school praises Sir Glenard for founding the school with the intention of mixing Caribbean and English people, it is revealed, “Glenard’s influence… ran through three generations of immigrants who could feel both abandoned and hungry even when in the bosom of their family in front of a mighty feast” (255). While Glenard’s intention with the school was to unite, his history of prejudice makes the community inherently divisive. Indirectly, colonialism still affects Irie—whether through her desperate attempts to straighten her hair or even the school she attends.

Read More
909 Words | 4 Pages

Jamaica Kincaid 's A Small Place examines the historical/social context of how Antiguans dealt racism through slavery after an oppressive European colonization. Kincaid reveals that European colonization resulted in Antigua dealing with injustice such as corruption and poverty. She argues Europeans and Americans traveling to Antigua are focused on the beautiful scenery, which is not a correct representation of the day to day lives of Antiguans. Although racism has many negative effects, Kincaid seemed to state the benefits of Europeans’ colonialism and how it contributed to her life such by introducing the English language and the library that helped her to become a writer. Kincaid states that we “cannot get over the past, cannot forgive and cannot forget” (26); therefore, Kincaid feels that the past influences the present.

Read More
479 Words | 2 Pages

In the short story “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator’s consciousness develops through a process of realization that she does not have to choose between the culture imposed on her and her authentic heritage. First, the narrator explains the metaphor “blackness” for the colonization her country that fills her own being and eventually becomes one with it. Unaware of her own nature, in isolation she is “all purpose and industry… as if [she] were the single survivor of a species” (472). Describing the annihilation of her culture, the narrator shows how “blackness” replaced her own culture with the ideology of the colonizers.

Read More
590 Words | 3 Pages

In Jamaica Kincaid’s essay “On Seeing England for the First Time”, she clearly voices her animosity towards the one place her whole life surrounded as a child in hopes of persuading her audience into understanding that there is a fine line between dreams and realities. As an adult, Kincaid finally is able to travel to England to witness firsthand what all the hype was about and why her childhood and education happened to be based around the fantasy customs of this country. Noticing that every detail of her life revolved around England, from the way she ate her food to the naming of her family members, Kincaid found her hatred growing more and more. Coming from a British colony, the obsession with England drove Kincaid crazy to the point that she finally traveled there one day. She says, “The space between the idea of something and its reality is always wide and deep and dark” (37).

Read More
1701 Words | 7 Pages

While it may seem as though the title is referring to Antigua as a small place (which is small, being only 9 miles by 12 miles), Kincaid is referring to more than just the island (Kincaid 262). The inhabitants of Antigua live on a distant and poor island that is visited by many wealthier people regularly. These people of higher class take advantage of the poverty and banality in the lives of Antiguans, reducing their place on their own island to be very restricted. This “Small Place” that the inhabitants have for themselves has shrunken over time, as more corruption and development tears apart a beautiful and captivating island location. Kincaid makes this known through her constant examples of government benefitting programs in Antigua, such as car loans that directly benefit ministers of the

Read More
1141 Words | 5 Pages

Imperialists often profess to have an interest in the development of a people or state they intend to conquer. And sometimes there is indeed evidence of ‘development’, but the benefits to the imperialists are always disproportionately greater. The Region has its politico-economic genesis in the bowels of imperialism. The Region, consequently, has progressed or retrogressed within this very context of imperialism. Imperialism has condemned the Caribbean Region to ‘Third World’ status perpetually it seems.

Read More
1715 Words | 7 Pages

Discourse on colonialism generally results in the different opinions of the colonizer and the colonized. The upshot of such discourse shows that colonialism has divergent interpretations. For the colonizer, it is ‘a civilizing mission’; to the colonized, it is exploitation. Such concept is better understood when both the views are studied with an objective approach. Things Fall Apart is a perfect novel to study colonialism as it deals with the perspectives of the colonizer and the colonized.

Read More

More about Corruption In A Small Place

Related Topics

Open Document