Minimum Length: 200 words or 20 sentences (100 words or 10 sentences per posting)
Jamaica Kincaid (b. 1949) was born Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson in Antigua, a small island in the West Indies. Formerly a British colony, it, along with the neighboring island of Barbuda, is a nation island within the British Commonwealth.
Jamaica Kincaid left Antigua at the age of seventeen to work as an au pair in New York. Her experiences were not unlike the main character of Lucy, and for good reason: Jamaica Kincaid is by and large an autobiographical writer. Her novels are autobiographical in the sense that there are many similarities between Kincaid’s life and the lives of her main characters.
Thus it is safe to assume that Kincaid wrote Lucy with her own experiences and concerns in mind rather than thinking about Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Caliban. Like Césaire, Kincaid is a fierce critic of colonialism and its aftermath. It is in light of her postcolonial critique that we can read Lucy with Caliban in mind. An Afro-Caribbean with Caribe Indian blood, Lucy is a migrant worker who comes to the United States to work and to go to school. A product of the British colonial education system, Lucy critically re-examines her past and views her present (at times simultaneously) while working for a white affluent family. In so doing, she begins to weigh her options for her future as her critique becomes the basis of her revolt.
For Forum #7 you should address at least two of the following prompts:
• Why does Lewis call Lucy “Poor Visitor”?
• Discuss the scene at the end of the first chapter during which Lewis tells Lucy a story and Lucy tells Lewis and Mariah her dream. How does Lucy react to Lewis’s story? How does Lewis and Mariah react to Lucy’s dream? And how does Lucy react to their reaction?
• Discuss how Lucy views her new surroundings.
• Discuss how Lucy views her job.
• Discuss the nature of the relationship between Lucy and Mariah. How does it change over time?
• What happens when Mariah shows Lucy some daffodils? What is the significance of the flowers for Mariah? For Lucy?
• Discuss the significance of the color yellow in Lucy.
• How would you describe Lucy’s attitudes and outlook? Do they change over time? If so, how and why?
• Discuss Lucy’s views regarding her education. How does the memory of its impact affect her reception to her new surroundings?
• Compare Lucy’s views about nature with Mariah’s.
• How does Lucy react when Mariah says, “I have Indian blood in me,” and why?
• Discuss the nature of Lucy’s relationship with her parents, particularly her mother. Why does Lucy not open her mother’s letters?
• Discuss the nature of Lucy’s relationship with Peggy. Why does she remain friends with Peggy?
• Discuss the nature of Lucy’s relationship with Paul.
• Discuss the nature of Lucy’s relationships with the other people in her life in general.
• Discuss Lucy’s memory of Myrna. How did she feel about Myrna’s story and why?
• Discuss the relationship between identity and pleasure in the novel.
• Can we read Lucy in light of Shakespeare’s The Tempest? In other words, can we regard the novel as a Caribbean woman’s reworking of The Tempest? Why or why not? If so, how?
• How do you personally view the character of Lucy?
• What happens to Lucy at the end of the novel, in your humble opinion?
Once you address two of the prompts listed above, you can also include any observations or ask any questions you may have about the readings.
In order to complete Forum #7, please respond to at least one of your classmates’ postings.
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